Science Writing Tries to Smash Human Exceptionalism

Africa, Amanda Richardson, animal behavior, antiquity, BBC News, Bronze Age, chimpanzees, Claire Asher, Côte D’Ivoire, Culture & Ethics, England, Homo sapiens, human exceptionalism, human mind, humans, Ice Age, Merlin, metal tools, monkeys, Neuroscience & Mind, New Stone Age, paleontology, polar bears, Royal BC Museum, Salisbury, Stone Age, stone tools, vultures, walruses
Stone tool use among animals versus the Stone Age provides a useful illustration of the tendency. Source
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Getting Stoned: Did It Shape Human Origins?

abstract thinking, anthropology, Aristotle, behavior, Big Think, Bobby Azarian, consciousness, Entropic Brain Hypothesis, Evolution, evolutionary psychology, Food of the Gods, human mind, Human Origins, magic mushrooms, Neuroscience & Mind, neuroscientists, New Stoned Ape Theory, panpsychism, psilocybin, Roger Penrose, Stone Age, Stoned Ape Theory, Terence McKenna
For a really wild excursion, nothing beats efforts to explain the evolution of the human mind. Source
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Metals: From Stars to Cells 

atomic weight, battery storage, cell's, civilization, crust-mantel boundary, dumb luck, earth, Earth’s crust, electrical wiring, foresight, fossils, fuel cells, Intelligent Design, interstellar space, iron, Jupiter, mantle, metallic ores, metals, meteoric bombardment, neutron capture, Physics, Earth & Space, planets, platinum, Saturn, silver, solar panels, stars, Stone Age, supernova, thorium, toxicity, uranium, Wealth
Tracing metals back to their ultimate origins, the processes of stellar nucleosynthesis come into focus. Source
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From Darwinists, a Shift in Tone on Nanomachines

Adam Watkins, bacterial flagellum, BioEssays, biology, Bruce Alberts, Darwinian pathways, Darwinism, David Hume, Dubai, E. coli, Evolution, flagellar filaments, From Darwinists, Guide to Reading Jason Rosenhouse (series), Harvard University, Howard Berg, Intelligent Design, Jason Rosenhouse, magnetotactic bacteria, molehills, moles, mountains, nanomachines, National Academy of Sciences, Rube Goldberg device, Stone Age, Technology
The shift in tone from then to now is remarkable. What happened to the awe these systems used to inspire? Source
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In Praise of Copper, a Gift from Nature

Alfred Russell Wallace, aluminum, ambient temperatures, conductors, copper, corrosion, crustal rocks, ductility, Earth’s crust, electrical devices, fire, Fire-Maker series, fitness, fortuity, gold, Intelligent Design, iron, lead, machinery, mantle, metallurgy, metals, rocks, silver, steam engine, Stone Age
If the conductivity of copper were ten times less, wires would have to be ten times the cross-sectional area to provide the same conductivity. Source
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By Design, Earth Is a Planet Fit for Fire

ambient conditions, atmosphere, atmospheric pressure, civilization, combustion, Douglas Drysdale, earth, Edward McHale, fire, fire spread, fire sustainability, Fire-Maker series, gases, gravity, Intelligent Design, mankind, metabolism, metals, Mount Everest, NASA, nitrogen, oxidative metabolism, oxygen, Physics, Earth & Space, respiration, Stone Age, Technology
As we have seen so far in this series, fire was an absolutely crucial component in humanity’s rise to civilization and technology. Source
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